A record number of Australians are cruising, but they’re facing a problem

The cruise industry gets a report card every year that provides a unique international overview of all the trends and statistics. Here’s how Australians are doing.

With all the cruise numbers now crunched and analysed for 2025 by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) that represents most of the world’s cruise companies, we have a good picture of what was happening in cruising last year.

First up, the big picture from CLIA’s State of the Cruise Industry Report: 37.2 million passengers set sail last year. That’s another all-time high, and a healthy 7.5 per cent increase over 2024.

This might make the 1.45 million Australian passengers who took a cruise in 2025 seem relatively modest, but in fact we’re the fourth-largest cruise market in the world after the US, Germany and UK, which is a sterling effort for a nation with a fraction of their populations.

That number is also a record after a 9.5 per cent increase over 2024, and it has finally overtaken the previous Aussie record set in 2018, just before the pandemic.

In short, the report card gives us the thumbs up for enthusiasm, with one in 20 Australians taking a cruise last year, although that proportion clearly leaves plenty of room for growth.

The vast majority of us – just over 80 per cent – set sail in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific, but there has been a sharp increase in those of us venturing further, which is now one-fifth of all passengers.

The most popular destinations (in decreasing order) were the Mediterranean, Asia, Alaska, the Caribbean and Northern Europe. Fewer than 1 per cent of us visited expedition destinations such as Antarctica and the Arctic.

Meanwhile, those on board are getting steadily younger, reflecting a global trend. More than a third of all Australian cruisers are aged under 40, and the average age is now 47.3 years. A third of all cruise trips involve multigenerational families.

With younger cruisers still working rather than retired, this is one of the reasons that cruises have been getting shorter. They now average seven and a half days, down from eight days in 2024.

While Australians are keen cruise goers, Australia itself is slowly sailing into the doldrums, with a dwindling number of ships visiting our shores, and Australian cruise fans increasingly inclined to fly overseas to cruise.

CLIA puts that trend down to regulatory uncertainties and the rising cost of cruise-ship operations here. Australians haven’t necessarily gone off local cruising, but are finding fewer ships on which to do it as cruise companies seek greater profit margins elsewhere.

Just how many ocean-cruise ships are sailing the world is hard to determine. CLIA’s members operate 325 vessels that account for 690,000 berths. However, some small-ship companies such as Lindblad Expeditions, Asian cruise companies, and most notably major player Viking Cruises aren’t CLIA members.

At least another 80 new cruise ships are expected over the next decade which, given trends, is just as well. It seems more and more of us are keen to set sail.